Which Was Moral--poison Gas Or Atom Bomb?

August 07, 1985|By James Warren.

Military history is replete with participants decreed to be moral decision-makers. The August-September issue of American Heritage reveals a prime example of a quandary that may seem monstrously ironic, especially this week.

Forty years after the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan, a Stanford University historian focuses on the Allies` refusal to use poison gas during World War II. He thus amplifies on a split between President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

Historian Barton Bernstein makes clear that Roosevelt was against poison gas, contending that its use ``has been outlawed by the general opinion of civilized mankind.`` Roosevelt remained adamant on the subject, despite the use of gas in World War I and major funding for the Army`s Chemical Warfare Service throughout World War II.

Bernstein has come upon a Churchill memorandum to military advisers shortly after D-Day. It followed hard upon a big German V-1 assault upon Great Britain that killed 2,700 and injured 10,000. Intent on punishing Germany, Churchill wrote:

``I want you to think very seriously over this question of poison gas. . . . It is absurd to consider morality on this topic when everybody used it in the last war without a word of complaint from the moralists or the Church. On the other hand, in the last war the bombing of open cities was regarded as forbidden. Now everybody does it as a matter of course. It is simply a question of fashion changing as she does between long and short skirts for women.``

He asked for a ``cold-blooded calculation. . . . I want the matter studied in cold blood by sensible people and not by that particular set of psalm-singing uniformed defeatists which one runs across now here now there.`` Ultimately, Churchill`s aides reported back that gas attacks would not be as effective as regular bombing of industries and cities. He is said to have lamented privately, ``Clearly I cannot make head against the parsons and the warriors at the same time.``

In 1945 the U.S. Army pushed for use of gas against Japan. Partly because of Roosevelt`s opposition, it was rebuffed. In a short time the matter was moot. Roosevelt was dead, Harry Truman was in power and a weapon far more daunting than gas was waiting in the wings.

-- Vanity Fair (August)--Well-heeled writer Dominick Dunne scores a coup of sorts with the first of two parts on Claus von Bulow. Dunne got unusual private access to Von Bulow during the recent retrial in which he was acquitted of trying to murder his wealthy wife. Photos of a preening Claus and his girlfriend, Andrea Reynolds, highlight this portrait of a master manipulator who exudes an almost perverse insincerity. He lives in the $8 million Manhattan apartment of the comatose wife and takes in $120,000 a year in interest on a trust she gave the Metropolitan Opera with the stipulation that Von Bulow would get the income for life. A close friend says, ``You see, he`s a fake. He`s always been a fake. His name is a fake. His life is a fake.`` Even better is an ex-husband of social climbing Reynolds: ``If Claus has to marry Andrea, he`ll wish he`d been convicted.`` Elsewhere, there`s a sugary look at writer Fran Lebowitz, who appears to have become court jester to the elite, parlaying her world-weary, alleged humor into residence on the

``A`` list of New York`s social scene.

-- Spin (September)--Bob Guccione Jr., son of the Penthouse publisher, is trying to make it in the world as boss of a glossy, more dank version of Rolling Stone. The accent is on more avant-garde rock groups and, if this is typical, interviews whose subjects are abused by the questioner. In this case, rock singer Pat Benatar`s interrogator is ``punk poet`` Lydia Lunch, who manages to plug her unpublished book and hint that it will tell all about her own deviant sexual practices. If the young Guccione has his dad`s commercial aplomb, this could all be par for the coarse.

-- The Journal of College and University Law (Summer)--Kent Weeks provides a lucid overview of how colleges and universities cope with increasing lawsuits over equal pay for equal work. Until recently promotions and tenure were the reasons for most litigation by disgruntled faculty, but now the majority of suits stems from faculty charges that they get the financial shaft even with valid seniority and merit systems. Weeks counsels court-wary administrations to document fully the distinctions they make on skill, effort and responsibility and to define job requirements. ($8, National Association of College and University Attorneys, Suite 620, 1 DuPont Circle, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036).

-- McCall`s (August)--Kevin Shanley is testament to the myriad of paths to greatness. Shanley, Princess Diana`s hairdresser for seven years, reveals details of their stylist-client relationship and break-up in an ``exclusive`` interview. In sum, he could not compromise his principles when informed she wanted her hair up. It is reassuring, despite the clash over coiffure, to learn, ``Even after all their ups and down, Kevin still holds Diana in admiration and some awe.`` In a period of moral temerity, such integrity and compassion are admirable.